


#GIT PAID

by JaneJHills



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic), Hockey RPF
Genre: AU - Kent is nowhere on his way to ever becoming captain, Heavy Drinking, Hookups, Poor choices, Shotgunning, Tequila, four loko, shots, vague sexual references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-16 11:26:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4623573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneJHills/pseuds/JaneJHills
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The summary could go something like this:<br/>Number 90 Kent Parson gets paid, gets laid, tequila and Gatorade.</p><p>or:<br/>Everyone has a problematic fave.</p><p>but ultimately:<br/>Jane needs a way to veNT HeR FRusTRaTIOn</p><p>**CHAPTER 2 NOW AN OPEN LETTER</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Link to a matching problematic playlist ⬇⬇*HERE*⬇⬇:  
> https://soundcloud.com/janejhills/sets/problematic-fave
> 
>  
> 
> This is one big mess.

Kent likes drinking, likes the taste of alcohol and the way it makes his brain go all soft-cottony once he’s had enough. He’s, like, 50 percent cooler when he drinks, too, and all of the girls love it - love him - especially when he parties that shit right up like a boss. Case-in-point: right now.

Right now, he’s got this gorgeous blonde, tall and stacked, plastering herself against him and whispering filthy encouragements while he tries to toss back more shots of shitty tequila than the guy across from him. She presses her breasts into his shoulders and grins flirtatiously down at him, the glittery pink shadow on her lids shimmers in the shitty, flashy light, augmenting the thick black of her eye liner. Kent catches her sharp brown eyes after finishing another shot, grins lazily right back up at her, winks, and goes in to booze it up some more. Three drinks later and the other guy finally gives in with a forced, “Shit,” and upchucks right next to his chair.

Kent pounds his final shot glass on the sticky table and throws his victorious, winner arms in the air. The spectators cheer around him, and the clingy blonde leans over and kisses him right on the mouth. She tastes like a mix of rum and Natty Light, and while weird, the taste’s not entirely unpleasant. Yeah, he could get behind that. He stands up, slings victorious, winner arms around her waist, looks straight at her face, and shouts, “I hope you’re ready babe, ‘cause I’m still thirsty for more.” He proceeds to kiss her soundly. Everybody cheers even harder, and a camera flash goes off.

It’s parties like these that he lives for: the ragers that kill your liver and blackout your brain and let you become just a face in an incredibly intoxicated crowd. These are the moments Kent wishes he had done at least one year of university before hockey, but whatever. What’s done is done, and what’s happening now is that he’s shirtless and he’s got a hot sorority sister in his arms who he’ll probably fuck stupid in a random room upstairs. They didn’t get the cup this year and Jack still hasn’t called, but life is good and Kent is _famous_ and people love him. Everybody loves him.

“C’mere,” says the girl, breaking away from his arms only to grab his wrist again and lead him towards the stairs. “C’mon.”

He goes easily, mock saluting all of his adoring tequila-shots fans and reeling his blonde in by her waist. She leads she way while he sloppily licks and bites her neck and her shoulders, toys with the thin straps of her black crop top. A particularly well placed nip to her collarbone has her gasping, “Ah! Kenny…” on the second step, and by the time they stand by the door of the closest room, the girl has been divested of her little black top and Kent is trying to unhook her bra. Lights flash around him, but he could care less; lights have been flashing all night. The blonde fiddles with the handle and they stumble inside, lips locked. He kicks the door closed behind them and the room darkens.

Sex is good because it makes Kent feel really good. Like, better than alcohol. And the blonde babe riding him? Tops. So good. Fuck. He can barely see a thing, but her skin is warm and soft like the Egyptian cotton sheets he has back home, and she makes the most delicious moans, which he sometimes swallows down with an occasional kiss. Mostly, though, she’s doing the brunt of the moving and he’s just sucking hickeys everywhere onto her. She leans against his chest, all the while Kent greedily runs his hands all over her ribs and sides and back, and _oh_ that’s perfect: just like that.

He comes with a strangled grunt and rolls away from her, lays there for a minute or two, and then gets rid of the condom, zips himself back into his trousers, and heads back downstairs with a muttered thanks. The girl on the bed looks pretty out of it.

Kaskade pounds in his ears as he grabs another cup of shitty keg beer and takes a long sip. A guy takes hold of his elbow and drags Kent to a group of some other bros and hoes with a few cases of Four Loko, which, fuck yes.

“Yo Col,” slurs the guy at his elbow, “one for Mr Hockey here.”

“Sup, dude?” says another guy, presumably Col, who comes up to him with a can in one hand and a screwdriver in the other. “Want to shotgun it?”

“Fuck yeah, gimmie that,” Kent says, grabbing for the drink. Col sticks the screwdriver in the side of then can, the dude next to him helps Kent hold it to his mouth, and Col pops the tab. Four Loko comes gushing out of the screwdriver hole, and Kent absently notes that it tastes like a fat guy’s sweaty ass while he guzzles the caffeinated alcohol as fast as he can. Lights blur around him and Loko spills out of his mouth when he doesn’t swallow fast enough. He closes his eyes and just drinks until the drink stops flowing.

His world feels off-kilter when he opens them again, like the room is sliding sideways and he’s been spinning around in circles for the past ten minutes. Bass thrums in his head, and the guys are slapping him on the back. Kent smiles stupidly, wondering suddenly where his shirt had gone. Another girl gets pushed into his line of sight, and when his world balances out, he sidles up behind her to maybe grind on her a little bit. She’s a great deal smaller than he had first thought, but she’s receptive and reciprocal, so.

“I’m Kent,” he tells her, right next to her ear.

“Aislinn,” she says, leaning her tiny body into his and grinding right back against him. Aislinn smells oversweet, like that Victoria’s Secret body spray that his sister used when she was twelve. She fits right against him, though, like two pieces of a puzzle come together. Kent wraps his arms around her little waist and buries his nose in her soft hair, which has the distinct scent of salon shampoo.

They stay like that for a while, Kent occasionally murmuring lyrics he barely knows from songs he barely remembers into Aislinn’s hair while she hums along.

“Hey, do you…” she begins.

“Yeah,” he says, because it’s already pretty obvious what the question will be.She reaches a hand back to find his cheek and tilts her head just so, seeking, inviting. He kisses her, keeps kissing her and then – and then…

What?

Where the fuck?

“Ow, shit. Ugh.” Strong midday sun pours into windows and straight through Kent’s eyelids. Who the hell decided closed curtains were optional fixtures in rooms with sleeping people? He flops his forearm over his eyes and squints against the rays. His throat is fucked, his stomach hurts, mouth tastes sour and gummy, and he - oh no, where’s the bathroom – has to throw up.

Wait, there’s a bucket next to the couch. Couch? Blue? Ugh. Kent leans over and pukes. What happened last night?

“You made my best friend hysterical, you know, when you blacked out in the middle of the party last night,” says (what the fuck?) his sister’s voice from somewhere in the room.

“Ungh,” he replies eloquently, rolling onto his back.

“Why are you even here? I thought you were going back to Utica to see mom and dad after the season ended.”

“Pia?” he groans.

“Kent?” she replies mockingly.

“I’m – where?”

“Philadelphia, you asshole. And you tried to sleep with my best friend last night.” Oh, that tone never means anything good is going to happen. “You’re lucky I’m not castrating you with a spoon right now.”

Kent snorts. Threats of spoon castration are not anything new from his sister, so he’s not particularly worried about the future of his balls. His stomach churns and he vomits into the bucket again, and yeah, that’s the more pressing concern. He groans again.

“Gatorade,” says Pia, and maybe Kent should have been worried about his balls because she drops the 32 ounce bottle full of lemon-lime Gatorade right on his crotch. He shouts and curls in on himself in pain, the bottle rolling off the couch as he cups his junk. Kent’s head spins with the sudden movement, and he feels like one big, sad lump of stupid. Pia can be such a bitch sometimes, especially when she’s out for vengeance.

She picks the bottle back up and holds it out to him. “Drink it.”

“Mmm,” he hums, taking the bottle from her again and sucking the sugary drink down. At least it’s his favourite flavour, so, small mercies.

“Why are you here?” she repeats.

“Painkillers,” he says in lieu of an answer.

“No. Brothers who do what you did last night don’t get any.”

“Pia,” he huffs.

“What, you got tired of sleeping with your best friend so you decide to move on to your sister’s?” Her tone is hurt, defensive, and makes Kent feel like the piece of shit he probably is.

He sighs.“That’s not how it was and you know it.”

“ _Why are you here_?”

“You’re not the only Parson who has friends at Drexel,” says Kent.

“You must have a pretty convoluted definition of the word ‘friend,’ then.”

“What are you talking about? My friends are awesome.”

“Kent - they invited you to a party, let you get blackout drunk, and do stupid shit. Not to mention what they let you tweet.”

“Tweet?” Kent asks, because what tweet? No good ever comes from surprise tweets.

“You became an overnight sensation. Your comment was very poetic, by the way. I like the rhyming.” She holds her phone out for him to look at.

“Shit.”

“Yeah,” she says, locking her phone.

Kent closes his eyes, tries to calm the throbbing in his head, and quietly says, “I barely remember what happened. And I don’t remember posting that.”

“But you still did,” says Pia.

“But I still did,” he agrees, deflated. “I wonder if I can play it off like somebody stole my phone or something.”

She unlocks her phone again and says, “You could try, but twitter has made it pretty clear that you were drunk and partying last night. Here.”

“Somebody even started the hashtag ‘party like parson.’ It caught on quickly, too, so there’s that.” Pia folds her arms and sits on the side of the couch, and it occurs to Kent that he hasn’t seen his sister since, fuck, since the last time they played The Flyers. She’s gotten some sun since January; he wonders how.

Suddenly her face softens. “The media’s going to eat you alive, aren’t they? You’ll be caught in the middle of a shitstorm.”

“Schrödinger’s cat,” he says, smiling weakly. But he already knows the outcome of the situation: Kent’s the helpless cat and no matter what, the TNT is set to explode.

She shakes her head. “I feel sorry for you, Parsnip, but I love you no matter what. I’m sure mom and dad will say the same. Now come on, you’re probably starving and Aislinn made stress French toast casserole.” Pia hops off the couch arm and holds out a hand to help him to stand. Kent still technically has to follow a diet plan, but, you know, French toast casserole and such.

His sister plates up and heats up their late breakfast while Kent spaces out on a shitty chair at a shitty dining table. He doesn’t want to even think about what went down last night, but he knows he’ll have to confront it very soon so he may as well start now.

“I need to delete that tweet,” he says.

Pia sets the microwave timer. “You do.”

“I’ll do it right now. Let me just get my phone.” He reaches into his back pocket and, shit, where is his phone? He pats the rest of his pockets, his shirt’s still missing, and he’s left his jacket… in the car?

“I don’t – uh?” he breathes.

“Geez,” Pia says exasperatedly. She taps around a bit on her own mobile before handing it to Kent, Twitter login page displayed on the shiny screen.

Kent logs in. The microwave beeps. The drunk tweet stares at him defiantly, and his headache worsens. He’s not deluded enough to think that hundreds of people haven’t screenshotted it already, but he hopes this will do some damage control. _Go to hell_ , he thinks at the stupid thing and deletes it.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, and logs out again just as his sister puts the warm plates on the table.

He tries to hand the phone back to her, but she says, “You should call Pat Brisson.”

That’s a good point. He puts the mobile on the table. “Shit, yeah. But I want to eat first.”

“Fine.”

The leftover French toast casserole is devoured in relative silence and Kent, while famished, tries to eat as slowly as possible in an attempt to hold off the inevitable call he’ll have to make to his agent. The food is probably delicious, but it tastes like cardboard right now at the prospect.

“Call Brisson,” says Pia the minute Kent’s plate is clear. “I’ll clean up in here.”

“Okay,” he says distractedly, trying to gauge just how pissed Pat is going to be at him when he picks up. If he picks up. Kent takes his sister’s phone and goes into the bathroom, because if he’s going to be chewed out, then he might as well do it in a place where he can’t be seen shaking. Once locked in, he swallows thickly and dials. It goes to voicemail.

“Hi Pat, this is Parse – er – Kent Parson calling. I thought I should call you after what happened last night in Philly. I don’t know if you’ve seen everything yet, but I… I may have fucked up. It might be bad. And I’m calling from my sister’s phone, so that’s why this is an unknown number. So, erm, could you call me back here when you get this? Thanks. Bye.”

Kent ends the call feeling more relieved than he’s felt ending any call ever before. He wants to throw up all over again because, holy shit, what if he gets kicked off the team? What if Las Vegas doesn’t want him anymore? Thank God Pat didn’t pick up: this way he might be able to do a little bit of telephone tag, avoid the quantifiable consequences a little longer.

Or maybe not. Pia’s phone starts vibrating in the irritating waltz beat that Kent repeatedly told her is stupid, and he just knows it’s Brisson. Shit.

“Hello.”

“Kent,” says Pat evenly, and Kent’s got to hand it to him, he must be handling this really well.

Kent sits on the closed lid of the toilet. “Uh, hi. Pat. So, uh, have you seen the tweet?”

“I have. I’ve seen yours and all of the ones other people made. I’ve also seen the photos.”

“Photos?” Kent practically squeaks. “There are photos too?”

 

“Yes. I thought you were aware of the whole situation?” Pat asks, his raised eyebrow all but audible through the speaker.

“I thought I was, I mean my sister gave me somewhat of a rundown, but she wasn’t at the party and I don’t… exactly remember a lot of what happened last night?” This will so much worse than he originally thought; Kent can just tell.

Pat sighs. “Right. Let me email those to you. The press is going to have questions and you’ll need to know what they’re talking about when the time comes. I’ve already talked to Aces management, they said they’ll release an official statement regarding the matter, and I assume PR is going to contact you some point soon to discuss how to proceed.”

“Okay. What are my options for now?”

“Right now all you can do is lie low. Don’t go to anymore parties, don’t drink publically. Just catch a plane back to New York and stay with your family for the rest of the summer,” says Pat. “If anybody bothers you before the official statement is made, tell them no comment. Hopefully this will blow over soon, Kent, but the repercussions of your night out are going to last the rest of your career.”

Kent puts his head in his hands. “Yeah,” he says softly. “I know.”

“Whatever happens, just know that The Aces still want you on the ice again for the preseason. You’re a valuable player and I think they realise that. Look, I have to go, but we’ll be in touch,” says Pat, and it’s not a question. They _will_ be in touch.

“Yeah, sure. Bye.” Kent closes his eyes and tilts his head towards the ceiling.

“Goodbye.”

And then it’s silent. Pat is gone and Kent is alone, truly alone in this tiny little bathroom in his sister’s shitty little shared apartment in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He gets off the toilet lid, opens it, and vomits bile. The porcelain of the bowl feels nice against his burning face, and he lets himself sit there a moment and wonder when exactly he got so low. It’s not a pleasant thought. Kent flushes the toilet and splashes some cold water on his face. That’s marginally better.

He figures he should probably get going soon if he wants to return his rental car and find a flight back home. Pia will probably want to say her goodbyes until school is over and she comes up to Utica as well. He unlocks the door and goes to find his sister, who is sitting at the kitchen table with two cups of what is undoubtedly instant coffee. She looks up when she hears him come in.

“How was it?” she asks, trading coffee for phone.

Kent lets out a self-deprecating laugh. “I’m not kicked off the team yet.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah, well I have to sit around at the house with mom and dad for the summer, be boring. Lay low.”

Pia takes a sip. “Mhm.”

“Do you know where I parked my car?”

“You rented a car?”

Kent frowns.“Don’t I always?”

“You always have a charter bus for the, like, two times you come to Philly,” she says into her mug, offering the smallest of smiles. “And taxis.”

“Oh.”

This is how he’s going to get out: he’s going to tell Pia that he needs to find the car and return it soon, because otherwise he’ll have to pay for a whole extra day. He’s going to make his apologies, say his goodbyes, and get the hell out of there so that he can mope at his parents’ house sooner. It’s fool proof.

Kent puts his mug down. “I should go find it, then,” he says.

Pia looks him over and says, “You planning to walk around the city shirtless? Come on Parsnip; let me find something that might fit.”

And that’s how Kent ends up walking around Philadelphia looking for a car he has only vague memory of, wearing a giant Drexel t-shirt that his sister sometimes sleeps in. It’s probably not the most glamorous of things, but he figures he probably can’t be one to talk right now. He’s just lucky he hasn’t lost the keys.

Turns out the car is a bright red Porsche 911 convertible parked right around the corner from the frat house – just the type Kent would rent. It’s kind of hard to miss, and he sighs when he unlocks the door.

As expected, his phone isn’t there, but it’s when he’s got his ass in the air searching under the seats that he hears, “Mr Parson? Kent Parson?” That’s strange. He’s not expecting to be recognised in Pennsylvania.

“Yes?” he says, righting himself slowly.

“My name is Officer Daniels. I need to ask you a few questions regarding what happened last night.”

_To: KVParse90@aol.com_

**_How are you going to fix this?_ **

 


	2. An open letter

Dear Reader,

         I took the second part down at the urging of, like, six angry people who wrote me some lovely essays because I’m a bit of a pacifist like that. (A+ guys, really.) But excuse me when I say that I’m going to think of the obviously _failed_ part as a little social experiment. While it was not the happiest or safest subject to be written about, especially not at the given time, I like to think it brought to light a few real social issues. Issues that are too controversial or near to the heart to be so-called ‘safe.’

Let me make one thing clear: I, as a reader and as a writer love the character Kent Parson. I am now aware how I dragged his name through the proverbial mud, and I apologize for that. That was never my intention. I think Kent Parson is an incredibly fascinating character, especially psychologically, and that’s why I find him so interesting to write.

But, moving on. To those who said the part was a direct Kane parallel and ‘my position was made very clear,’ I am going to say this: first, I do not have a position in this investigation. I’m staying out of it because all I’ll get from either side is senseless hate. I stopped following every hockey blog I followed on tumblr _one day_ after the news broke because the sheer vapidity of the people was unbearable. The parallels I used were to bring to light a hypothetical ‘what if’ situation that, don’t fool yourself, is completely plausible. Second, it is _okay_ to support Patrick Kane right now. We know about five things for sure, and sometimes witness testimonies have contradicted each other. The most recent news is that Kane met with police. False accusations of all kinds happen all the time with stars in every sort of industry. But. Like I said in part two, ‘ _from here on out you’re guilty until proven innocent_ ,’ right?

Some of the commenters used one of my favourite trigger words: ‘ **misogyny!** ’ they cried. Oh how I love the sweet syllables of the word ‘misogyny’ as they roll off my tongue along with my beloved ‘patriarchy,’ ‘(x) shaming/blaming,’ and ‘rape culture.’ I could write odes to how non-existent they all are in western society today.

What even is the patriarchy? When has it ever, as a whole machine, oppressed women as a whole peoples? Say it after me kids, _women are not perpetual victims, rape culture does not exist in the western world, and men can be victims too._ By even insinuating that women are perpetual victims of whatever fabricated term you want to bring up next, you are suggesting that we are not strong enough to work the hand that we, most of the time, deal ourselves. The world does not revolve around the comfort of women. It’s harsh, but it’s true, so get over yourself. Men will do what men do, women will do what women do, trees will grow, paint will dry, and all the chemical and biological differences between them will persist to be no matter what campaign radical feminists throw at them next.

Yes it is horrible that we sometimes feel unsafe walking around alone at night, I feel it too. But here in the western world we don’t have it even half as bad as people in Africa, Southwest Asia, India, etc. There are steps we can take to ensure our own safety like responsible citizens. Walk with a friend, take a self-defence class, carry mace if you need to, but once you are an adult, remember that nobody is responsible for you except for you. Telling rapists not to rape, murderers not to murder, or thieves not to steal is about as effective as telling wood to not burn when it’s put near fire.

Rapists, murderers, thieves, they get put in jail when they are caught. There is at least a police presence and a trial. These crimes are not accepted as a fact of life by citizens of western countries but rather treated as an abomination, an abnormality, and something very, very wrong. The same cannot be said about other places in the world. If you’d like to complain to me about misogyny or rape culture in western society, then please, go ahead and live as a woman in Syria, Afghanistan, or Nigeria to name a few. We’ll talk after that.

And to those who said, “but women! Do! Get raped! It is horrible that you would even conceive that the woman is not the victim!” Let’s look* at** all*** the⁴ cases⁵ that⁶ prove⁷ otherwise⁸. Men get raped and abused, too. When they go to the police they get laughed at, mocked, or worse, turned into the aggressor instead. Men have one, one safehouse in North America while women have many. They get kicked out of Universities for things they didn’t do, thrown in jail for crimes they didn’t commit, and generally receive all around harsher punishments for doing the same thing a woman did. It is horrible that women get raped, abused, and it is never okay on any level, but do not ever try to tell me that women have it worse when it comes to the handling of these cases. At least we have to power to lie about it and still be taken seriously.

Reader, I fear that I am bothering you at this point, so I shall conclude my letter here. There is a beautiful summer day outside, golden morning sunlight streaming through my windows and gathering in shimmering pools onto my walnut floors. Trees, green with vibrant life sway in the gentle breeze, and the sky? Well, the sky is an endless plain of gorgeous blue. Can you imagine it? It’s a beautiful sight.

But alas, it is a sight that reminds me that I have a life to live outside my little room. There are runs to be taken, forests to explore, and work to be done, and I can no longer sit behind the gentle anonymity of this technological era trying to reason with the unreasonable. I shall go my way and you shall go yours, but I hope this open letter has revealed something to you. And if you still hate me after this, please know that I do not hate you. Your thoughts are your own and I will not try to tamper angrily with them in hopes that you will change. I respect you, I respect your mind, and I respect your choices to the fullest extent, but if you still should not believe me,

Can we agree to disagree?

Many warm regards,

The woman behind the pseudonym of Jane J Hills

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * http://www.mindingthecampus.org/2015/06/did-mattress-girl-tell-the-truth-not-very-likely/  
> ** https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/26f8bj/men_of_reddit_who_were_victims_of_domestic/  
> *** http://www.lanazione.it/firenze/stupro-bowes-denuncia-simulazione-reato-1.403202  
> 4 http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2015/04/27/after-falsely-accusing-an-innocent-man-lena-dunham-is-celebrated-as-a-rape-role-model/  
> 5 https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/37oeoi/amy_schumer_admits_to_raping_a_guy_feminists/  
> 6 http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/another-female-student-lies-about-being-raped  
> 7 http://thoughtcatalog.com/janet-bloomfield/2014/12/13-women-who-lied-about-being-raped-and-why-they-did-it/  
> 8 http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/09/false_rape_accusations_why_must_be_pretend_they_never_happen.html


End file.
